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Upanishads · Sarasvatīrahasya 4.33
॥
Devanāgarī
मयि जीवत्वमीशत्वं कल्पितं वस्तुतो नहि । इति यस्तु विजानाति स मुक्तो नात्र संशयः
Transliteration (IAST)
mayi jīvatvamīśatvaṃ kalpitaṃ vastuto nahi | iti yastu vijānāti sa mukto nātra saṃśayaḥ
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
मयि जीवत्वम् ईशत्वंmayi jīvatvam īśatvaṃin me, living-being-ness and lordship
कल्पितं वस्तुतः न हिkalpitaṃ vastutaḥ na hiare fabricated; in reality they are not
इति यः तु विजानातिiti yaḥ tu vijānātiwhoever thus knows
सः मुक्तः न अत्र संशयःsaḥ muktaḥ na atra saṃśayaḥis liberated — there is no doubt here
Translation
In me, both living-being-ness and lordship are fabricated; in reality they do not exist. Whoever thus knows is liberated — there is no doubt here. Such is the upaniṣad.
Version
eb62cd522184 · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
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The book ends, and its last verse is the most compressed expression of non-dual teaching we have encountered in one hundred and six books; it is worth examining it with the utmost attention. It is said: mayi jīvatvam īśatvaṃ kalpitaṃ vastuto na hi, "in me, both living-being-ness and lordship are fabricated; in reality they do not exist." That is, both are fabricated: both that I am a soul, and that there is a Lord.
What remains is one nameless "I," in which neither exists. The construction is carried through to the end and softened by nothing; and it is worth giving this its due: the book does not equivocate. Now let us say why the Vaiṣṇava side does not accept this; and let us repeat the arguments that have guided us through this whole collection, for this is where they belong and where they gather together.
First: who is speaking? The verse is uttered by Sarasvatī — she who, at the start of this very book, was called brahmaṇaḥ śaktiḥ, "the power of brahman" (2.2), and who herself said she received knowledge brahmaṇā eva, "from brahman itself" (4.11). That is, the one speaking is not what she speaks of; and the assertion "in me there is no lordship" is uttered by one who has an owner. Second: whose fabrication is this? If both the soul and the Lord are fabricated, one must ask who fabricated them. The answer "māyā herself" will not do, for māyā is, by this very book, the power of the Lord (4.15), and there is no Lord. This objection is āśraya-anupapatti, "the untenability of a locus," cited when reading many books: ignorance has no bearer.
Third: the verse itself distinguishes. It says mayi, "in me," in the locative case; and "in" presupposes a container distinct from what is contained. If there were nothing but the one, there would be no "in." Fourth, and the last line: sa mukto natra saṃśayaḥ, "he is liberated." Liberated — who? If there is no living-being-ness, there is no one to liberate; and if there is someone to be liberated, living-being-ness is not fabricated.
This is sva-vacana-virodha, "contradiction of one's own statement," which we have noted in a dozen books: a statement denying difference itself distinguishes — the speaker from the listener, the knower from the unknowing, the liberated from the bound. Let us add what the Vaiṣṇava side sets in the place of this verse, for to object while offering nothing would be cheap. Her position was cited when reading the Varāha (3.8) and rests on one word of the Gītā: mamaivāṃśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ, "My eternal part, becoming a living being" (15.7).
A part is not a fabrication; eternal is not temporary; "Mine" means there is someone whose. Three words, and each answers one of the three assertions of the present verse. Let us look back, for the last time, over the whole book.
It is composite and splits into two as sharply as none of those we have read. The first half is a hymn to the goddess of speech: ten ṛcs of the Ṛgveda with contemplations, and in it are the finest passages in this whole collection on the word — the four feet of speech (2.6), speech spoken by animals (2.8), and the ṛc where she opens herself "like a wife to her husband, desiring" (2.9). The second is an extract from non-dual Vedānta, and in it everything is set out compressed and honest: two reflections, two powers of māyā, the fivefold portion, six samādhis.
The finest in it, to my mind, are three passages, and the Vaiṣṇava side accepts all three entirely: the fivefold portion (4.23), where pleasantness is declared a property of the highest; that the veil covers difference (4.18, 4.21), from which it follows that its removal reveals difference; and the knot of the heart, untied by what one has seen (4.32). And her final verse is precisely what we have argued against for a hundred and six books running; and it is well that it is stated directly, for a direct objection is easier to answer than an evasive one.